by Gabi Moore
I squinted at the picture.
“God, I look like an angry orangutan or something,” I said, and returned the drawing to the backpack.
“Angelica’s been learning about money today, haven’t you, sweetheart? About how we pay the cashier at the grocery store when we buy food. Isn’t that right?”
Angelica poked her head from behind the fridge door and grinned. I smiled and started to make us all some coffee while Maeve gave me the rundown of what they’d done in class and the outings they’d been on.
I smiled sadly at the thought of Angie learning about money. I paid a small fortune for her place on the only worthwhile residence program for Down Syndrome adults in our state. Did they really need to teach her how to break a five-dollar bill or draw cash from an ATM? The whole point of me busting my ass to provide for her was that she didn’t have to stress herself about it.
Maeve eventually left. Angie started beaming and wiggling her fingers and I read her mind instantly.
“You wanna paint your nails today, honey?” I said and she smiled ear to ear. So we went upstairs and I decided that while she was busy, I’d quickly take a peek at my overflowing inbox and reply to a few emails. We went upstairs to my den and she reached up onto her tiptoes to pull down her ‘special box’ of things she was only allowed to do at her big/little sister’s house. It was full of Barbie play-makeup, hair beads and unfinished friendship bracelets.
I curled up on the sofa and let her entertain herself with some glitter nail polish while I checked my mail. There was a time when Angie was bigger and smarter than me. Then, I grew up, learned to speak, went to school. We were equals for a while. Then I carried on growing, and Angie stayed where she was. Angie was always three years old. Me and the rest of the family aged and grew up around her, but with Angie, it was always like time travelling. Always like going back to the same innocent moment in 1987. We exchanged a smile, then she hunched back over at her life and I hunched over mine.
Dear Mistress Morgan,
Thank you for allowing me to contact you. I have combed through your website and would like to ask permission to serve you in the near future, at your discretion. I have had the pleasure of serving other Mistresses before but can sadly say I have never been properly brought to my limits. This is why I’m writing to you, Mistress. I desire a beautiful, demanding dominatrix who will permit me to worship her feet, serve as her slave and pet, and be punished and trained as you see fit. Discretion is very important for me, so I’d like to suggest a meeting where we can both discuss further details and hopefully come to a mutually pleasing agreement.
Respectfully,
G. Anderson
I read the email through once more, picked out a few telling phrases (‘demanding’ is always a giveaway, as is the use of the word ‘discretion’ – twice) then I closed it and made a note to make him wait a few days before I responded. I opened the next one.
Beautiful Mistress,
I am captivated by your charming smile and beautiful figure. Does Mistress long for the company of a sophisticated gentleman? If it pleases Mistress, I could offer a foot massage this coming Thursday, at our usual time. I know you work very hard and must want a little pampering, which I’m happy to provide.
Ever yours,
Byron
This one made me groan out loud. Can you tell the difference between this and the previous one? Just read both of them again, and see if the pit of your stomach doesn’t feel a little more uneasy with the second.
Byron is a new-ish client, and one I’m figuring out how to drop. He’s precisely the kind of man who profoundly misunderstands the Domme-sub relationship. The company of a ‘sophisticated gentleman’? I don’t require a gentleman, I require a slave.
Angie froze, pricked her ears and then looked at me.
“Mailman,” she said. I nodded and gestured downstairs.
“Will you be a big girl and go and fetch the mail for me, baby?”
She dropped what she was doing and raced downstairs, then came back up a moment later with her arms full. I handed her the junk mail and fast food menus.
“Angie baby, have you had lunch? Have you got your wallet with you?” She nodded, then handed me a pink Velcro wallet from her pocket. It had two tens in it from the bank account they set up for her at the home.
“Good girl. Now look at the menu and see what we can buy for twenty dollars, OK? Remember, we can’t get it if it’s more than twenty, can we?”
She thought carefully about it and then shook her head. She went back to sit on the carpet and pore over the menus while I examined the mail she’d brought in.
Mostly bills and junk mail, but also a familiar pink envelope that I knew to look for once a month. I tore it open to find a blank check and smiled.
The day I discovered the existence of ‘financial domination’ was a very good day indeed. In fact, I had only met this particular client of mine once, and for the last six months he had been content for me to call him up occasionally to laugh at him and demand he buy me things and send me money. In addition, I was paid $1000 monthly, whether he managed to take my calls or not, and all I had to do was force him to take me shopping once in a while and refuse to give back his credit card until I’d bought everything my heart desired.
There were three separate, small parcels that were likely from admirers, but I quickly hid these away before Angie demanded to see what was inside them.
I curled back on the couch and carried on with the emails. I groaned at the next on the list: a newsletter I had stupidly signed up for back in the day and had never managed to unsubscribe from. I scrolled through. It was from the early days; back when I thought making connections in the ‘scene’ was a good idea. There were several successful Dommes in my area but I soon found myself at odds with all of them.
They always seemed to me too tacky, too obvious. Too much in-fighting and politics. My work got far easier the moment I stopped caring about the BDSM ‘community’, and besides, my clients loved that I seemed so mysterious, so unlike the other women who were out there hawking their services with embarrassing Wordpress websites.
I skimmed the feature article – titled A True Domme’s Instrument of Choice is Always Her Heart – and scoffed. If you’re not familiar with any of this, allow me to explain. The difference between a ‘Pro’ Domme and a ‘lifestyle’ Domme is that the former know what they’re doing and the latter are angry about it. Ok, I’ll be fair: the difference between the two is a bit like the difference between women who have sex for fun and women who have sex for money. The one side likes to pretend they have the moral ground, the other side wonders what morals have to do with anything.
Just like everything in life, there are professionals, and there are amateurs. And I’m the former. I don’t go to ‘munches’ or play parties or care about leather families. I don’t keep sex slaves for fun or wear garter belts to do my grocery shopping. This is my job, that’s all. And I’m so good at that job because I don’t allow myself to get involved. Ever. I’m in the Pro Domming business because it lets me get further away from messy emotions …not closer to them.
I smile to myself and shut the newsletter, hitting the unsubscribe button. Again.
If some people want to crow on about how they’re the only true and pure practitioners of a craft, they’re welcome to, I don’t care. I’m younger, prettier, more in shape and yes, more skilled at what I do than they are, and have the bank balance to prove it. Are professional chefs threatened by some granny’s home cooking? Do opera singers need to maintain good relations with the karaoke community? Yawn. Are you bored yet? Because I am. You can see why I avoid this sort of thing.
“Nora! Nora!”
I lifted my gaze to see Angie waving a few bright pink fingernails at me. I smiled and nodded.
“That’s beautiful, baby. You’re such a pretty girl,” I said and she carried on painting, her tongue poking out to the side in concentration. I opened yet another email.
Mistress
,
I’m a faggy little sissy who wants to be dressed up as a little slut and--
I deleted this one instantly. That’s not what I’m about, no way, no how. If you’re the kind of man who thinks the ultimate humiliation is to pretend to be a woman for a while, you and I are not going to be friends.
Next.
Dear Mistress Morgan,
I have tried many times to write this email and keep getting stuck. Reaching out to someone like you is incredibly difficult, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I get any of the lingo wrong etc.
I’m new to all of this. But for some time now I’ve had an intense curiosity and I’d like to explore some possible encounters with you. I am flexible time-wise but anxious to meet you as soon as you are available. I’d rather not put into words right now exactly what I’m looking for. My “kink” is quite complicated, but I’d appreciate the chance to meet and discuss it with you anyway.
Kind Regards,
D.
Interesting.
I read it again.
It was sent from some bogus Hotmail address. And yes, it was certainly unlike the kind of messages I was used to. My eyes focused on how the word kink had been placed in quotation marks. Now, I’ve always loved a nervous newbie, but there was something else about this letter that I couldn’t put my finger on.
I replied quickly with a suggested date and time to meet, and chewed my lip in thought for a moment. My intuition about men is usually spot on, but with a message as hard to read as this one, I decided it was best not to keep him waiting.
I stared again at my inbox.
Nothing at all from him.
Bastard.
I looked over at Angie and again at my screen. I was sure yesterday that I never wanted to lay eyes on that man again, and yet now I was sitting here, wondering why he hadn’t messaged me at all. No apology, nothing. I was still struggling to understand what had happened, but I was more and more sure that it was something he should be ashamed of.
Angie and I eventually ate pizza, watched some TV and later that afternoon Maeve came to pick her up again and I hugged them both goodbye.
Another irritating realization was dawning on me: Mr. Cane’s direct monthly debit order had not come through this morning, as it should have. I tried to convince myself it was a coincidence, and nothing to worry about. A man like him must have countless things on his plate, and can certainly afford the few grand I take from him every month.
But the more I thought about it, the worse this line of reasoning became – if it was such a little thing, then why hadn’t he done it? My clients never pay late. And the last person I’d expect it from was him. Now, not only had he humiliated me the night before, he was doing it all over again by putting me in a position that no serious dominatrix ever wants to be in: having to beg.
It was obvious. He was making a point. I wasn’t sure what that point was, exactly, but it felt hostile. It was a strange, crooked little empire I had built for myself over the years, but it was mine, and I certainly didn’t want someone like Mr. Cane undermining that.
I idly flipped through the TV stations for a while before getting bored and then got up and decided to have a long bath to try and soak his ugly memory out of my mind. I carried my phone to the bathroom and played around online for a few minutes as the bath filled up and my screen soon slicked over with steam. I threw in a generous glob of foam bath, dimmed the lights and tried to force myself to unwind a little as the white mounds of bubbles grew higher and higher.
I don’t use this great big bathtub often, but when I do, I like to take my time with it. Stay in for as long as I can bear. Get really hot and sleepy and forget about everything for a while. I slowly lowered myself in, the hot water first a sting on my skin and then a delicious embrace, a big watery hug that warmed me right through.
I exhaled loudly.
It was all fine.
Not every client was as easy as Ralph, who was more or less becoming the weirdest tenant ever. It was inevitable, that I’d have a client one day that just wouldn’t pan out well. I was a big girl; I could handle one or two sour encounters …cost of doing business, right? I was good at what I did, and nobody could take that away from me. I sunk deeper in, till the bubbles brushed against my chin.
If you were so good at your job then why did you freak out so badly the other day?
I squeezed my eyes shut. I could think about all of that later. Now, it was just me and the bath, me and the hot, clean, empty water, completely colorless, moving around me with perfect ease.
Shall I tell you a secret, dear reader? I’m feeling calmer now and in the mood, and you won’t tell anyone, probably. But here’s the thing: the most scandalous fact about me is not that I make money doing the kind of sex work that people love to mock and criticize. It’s not even that I have a disabled older sister who relies entirely on me for her well-being.
I let my head fall back heavily against the bathtub and surrendered to the weightlessness of my floating limbs in the water. My knees gently fell apart from each other and I didn’t stop my hand when it made a trail from my hipbone down into the valley between my legs. I let it rest there, wondering if I wanted to continue. I knew where that path led.
My big secret?
I’ve never had an orgasm.
Not one.
Glad we’ve gotten that out of the way.
No, I’m not sure why, and yes I’ve tried, and no, it doesn’t bother me anymore. Well, sometimes it does, but what can I do? Every once in a while I open this can of worms to see if I’m still broken, still missing that vital piece that all other women seem to be born with and not me. Now, don’t feel sorry for me. I’ve done all the things they say you should do. But it just never happened for me. It’s just as well that there’s no ‘significant other’ in my life to make this into a significant problem, because as of now, I think I’ve given up.
Well, almost given up.
I gingerly slipped my fingers between the silky folds there and waited, like I was stalking a nervous animal and didn’t want to startle it. But my body seemed to be cooperating for now. I drew breath slowly and steadily, finding that sweet spot that felt good to touch, and started swirling tiny circles over it, stroking it ever so gently and stirring that feeling up like I was spinning sugar, weaving with the faintest touch lest I break something or lose my concentration.
Being unable to orgasm is like having an important word on the tip of your tongue but never, ever being able to think of what it is. It’s like an itch that isn’t ever satisfied with scratching. You know that moment you watch a glass slip off the edge of a table and it comes falling to the ground, and there’s that split second when you know the shattering is inevitable, and you see in slow motion the whole glass inching closer and closer and closer to the floor? Well, not being able to come is like being stuck in that moment, forever, and never having the relief of one big, fat smash.
Being in the bathtub made it easier, though. I got much further, when soaked in the warmth of a hot bath. As though it’s easier to melt myself when I’m literally submerged in liquid. I stroked tenderly, chasing quivering little spots over and around my clit, watching the sensations dart away from me and disappear, only to reappear somewhere else, teasing me.
And all at once I thought of the email. That one. The “kink” one. Without trying, strange, frothy images bubbled up into my mind and I was too dozy to resist them. I saw a vision of myself, but I was different. No makeup. No costume. Just me. Naked. Very naked.
“Watch me,” said a disembodied voice, and as I continued to stroke and tease I realized the voice is coming from Mr. Cane, fully clothed, standing far off on the horizon of my little fantasy world and giving me orders. My fingers paused and my eyebrows knotted. No, that’s not right. Mr. Cane’s image dissolved, but his voice remained. That too floated away, but it still left behind something… something…
“Fucking watch me. Do as I say,” the voice said, all on its own. My eyes snapped ope
n. Where the hell did that come from?
All I knew is that my fingertips were moving again, desperately, and this time I felt a velvety hot ribbon of my own wetness. The glass felt so close to the floor I was sure it would smash into a million pieces any moment now… I heard the voice again, but this time, even the words themselves had disappeared, leaving only the feeling behind them. I was being ordered. Commanded. Spoken to roughly, but firmly.
“Come for me,” the voice said, and my hips tilted upwards to taste more of that sweetness from my fingers. “Come, Nora. Let me see you come,” the voice whispered, and it was bossy and impatient and greedy and all I wanted to do was obey it, with every little twitching part of me…
Bzzzzzt.
I froze and took a moment to realize what was happening.
My phone was ringing.
I cursed under my breath, and sat up quickly in the sloshing water. I grabbed a towel to dry my hands and pick up to see who the hell could be calling me at a time like this. Then my skin washed over with goosebumps and I just knew: it was him. An unknown number, but I just felt it. Just knew.
I sat up straight. How the hell did he get this number? Mind reeling, my finger hovered to answer, but I couldn’t think quickly enough. On the fourth ring, I knew I had to answer. Was this about his insultingly late payment?
I answered but said nothing, and waited to hear what he had to say for himself.
“Nora,” came his voice on the other end of the phone. It was him. I was immediately turned off, my little thread of spun sugar a distant memory the moment he spoke my name – a name he didn’t even have permission to use.
“This is a private number,” I said curtly. I swear I could almost hear him smile.
“I know.”
I recoiled at how confident his voice sounded. How dare he.
“How did you even get hold of this number? You know what the rules are. You’re meant to email me first and then--”
“Hey, Nora, I called you, so sue me. I don’t care about the rules.”
